Inductees in Olympic Athletes

Michael Barrowman: gold medalist in the 200-meter breaststroke in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games avenging a fourth-place finish in that event as the favorite in the Seoul Olympics of 1988. Mike held the world record in that breastroke event and was named American and World Swimmer of the Year in 1989 and 1990 by Swimming World Magazine. He is the only three-time winner of the USA Swimming Association’s Swimmer of the Year Award (1989, 1990, 1991). Mike competed at the University of Michigan where he was a multi-event winner at the NCAA Championships and was named NCAA Swimmer of the Year in 1990.
Read more >

William Beck, a member of the 1952 Winter Olympic Team, placed fifth in the Alpine skiing event. He also competed in the 1956 Winter Games at Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy. Beck was prominent in the international ski circuit in the 1950's and is regarded as Rhode Island's greatest all-time skier. In 1958, he was named coach of the U.
Read more >

Bob Bennett won a bronze medal in the hammer-throw at the 1948 London Olympics. A native Rhode Islander, and a 1948 graduate of Brown University, Bennett set the Brown track record of 179'8" in the hammer and earned All-American honors.
Read more >

Tarzan Brown, a Native American from the Narragansett tribe, came from the south county village of Alton. He became a world-class marathoner in the 1930's. After a disappointing performance in the 1936 Olympics, Brown entered seven marathon races in close succession and won them all. Two of these races were won within twenty-four hours of each other.
Read more >

John Collier, 1907-1984, was a bronze medalist in the 110-meter high-hurdles in the 1928 Amsterdam Games. He was a Providence resident and the son of noted Brown University historian Theodore Collier. This Phi Beta Kappa student was the long-time Brown University record holder in the hurdles events, and the national collegiate champion in the high hurdles. In 1934, Collier ran the sixty-yard high-hurdles in 7.
Read more >

Sara DeCosta (Hayes): gold medalist in women’s hockey at the 1998 Nagano, Japan Games and silver medalist as goalie for the United States women’s hockey team in 2002 at Salt Lake City. Sara was an all-state goalie on the boy’s varsity team at Toll Gate High School in 1996. She played intermittently for Providence College, between her tours with the U. S.
Read more >

Paula Deubel-Phillips, 1935-1993, was a member of the U.S. Women's Track and Field Team as a shot putter in the 1956 Melbourne Games. Although a resident of Swansea, Massachusetts, she trained with and competed for the Little Rhody AC, a local track club that pioneered women's competition in track and field.
Read more >

Henry Dreyer, 1911-1986, a Providence native who competed for URI, participated in the 1936 and 1948 Olympics, and was the only American to make both teams. Each time he placed ninth. Between 1934 and 1952, Dreyer held twenty-one national championships in the weight throws. Dreyer was an AAU hammer-throw champion four times, 56-pound weight titleholder six times, and 35-pound weight champion ten times.
Read more >

Ivan Fuqua, 1909-1994, a football and track star at Indiana University, won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, as part of the world record-setting 4x400-meter relay. In 1946 he came to Rhode Island to coach track at Brown University from 1947-1973 where guided the outdoor track team to five New England cross-country titles and three regional crowns.
Read more >

Robert Gaudreau, a member of the U.S. Hockey Team at the 1968 Olympics at Grenoble, France and a local schoolboy stand-out at Hope High School in Providence, where he made All-State.&nbsp;Later at Brown, he was selected twice to the All-American Hockey Team as a defenseman.
Read more >

David Gavitt, 1937-2001, a native of Westerly, was the successful coach of the Providence College basketball team, which brought fame to Rhode Island, for ten years.&nbsp;He was named coach of the basketball team that represented the Unites States in the 1980 Olympic Games.
Read more >

Archibald (“Archie “) Hahn won gold medals in the 60-meter, 100-meter, and 200-meter dashes in the 1904 St. Louis Games and gold in the 100-meter dash in the 1906 interim Olympics at Athens. Hahn tied the world record of 9.8 in the 100-yard dash (1901) and set a world record of 21.
Read more >

Dr. David Connolly Hall was the bronze medalist in the 800-meter run at the 1900 Paris Olympics. Dr. Hall, a native of Quebec and a student at Brown University (Class of 1901), became Rhode Island’s first Olympic medalist.
Read more >

John Higgins, 1916-2004, was fourth place finisher in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 1936 Berlin Games. During his remarkable career, Higgins set world records and American records in the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly breaststroke, the individual medley, and the medley relay. In these events he won eleven U.S.
Read more >

Lynne Jewell (Shore) won a gold medal in yachting at the Seoul Games in the 470 class. Lynne’s yachting career spans two coasts. She grew up in California, summered with her grandparents in Plymouth, Massachusetts, starred in sailing as a student at Boston University (Class of 1981), and came to live in Rhode Island in 1985, with her sailing coach and former husband Bill Shore.

A competitive sailor since the age of seven, Lynne was the U.
Read more >

Helen Johns (Carroll) was a gold medalist in the women’s 400-meter freestyle swim relay in 1932 at the Los Angeles Games in a world record time of 4:38. Helen is shown here (at left) with Albina Osipowich, who became a member of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame at its 1968 Olympic induction for winning two gold medals in swimming at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics (100-meter freestyle in world record time of 1:11 and the 400-meter freestyle relay).

Raised in Medford, Massachusetts, Helen Johns learned swimming from her father. She trained primarily in the ocean because there were few pools in the area.
Read more >

Katie King-Crowley was a member of the gold medal winning women’s ice hockey team at the 1998 Nagano, Japan Games, and silver medalist as a member of the United States women’s hockey team in 2002 at Salt Lake City. Although a New Hampshire resident, Katie competed for Brown University (Class of 1997) and is the daughter of Rhode Islanders. Her father, Joseph, was raised in Warwick and her mother, Susan, in East Providence.

At Brown, Katie was a two-sport superstar and team captain.
Read more >

Alvin Loftes (born Alvin Hjalmar Lofstedt), 1890-1971, won a bronze medal in cycling in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in the four-man team time trial. The 320-kilometer race, the first and the longest team time trial in Olympic history, was won by Sweden due, in part, to its home course advantage. Loftes also finished eleventh in the individual road race. Upon his return from the Games, he moved from Providence to Point Judith, where he became a self-employed commercial fisherman until his retirement in 1955.
Read more >

Geoffrey T. Mason, 1902-1987, earned gold as a member of the five-man bobsled team at the 1928 St. Moritz Winter Games the first year the five-man bobsled (the skeleton sled) was allowed. Born in Philadelphia and a graduate of Bowdoin Collge (class of 1923), Mason lived in Rhode Island for most of his life and worked as an executive in a Pawtucket steel company.
Read more >

Harriet M. “Holly” Metcalf won a gold medal in rowing in the eight-oars with coxswain at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Holly, a Rhode Island native, attended Mt. Holyoke College and holds an advanced degree from Harvard University.
Read more >

Janet Moreau (Stone) is a gold medalist with her team in the 4x100-meter relay in the 1952 Helinski Games. Her team established a world record in the event of 45.9 Moreau was a national champion in the fifty-yard dash, the 220-yard dash, the standing long jump (five times), and the 4x100-yard relay. In 1948, the Pawtucket native had been junior national swimming champion in the 100-yard freestyle.
Read more >

Albina Osipowich (Van Aken), 1911-1964, was the women's swimming star of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. Albina, a member of the Pembroke swim team, won gold medals in the 100-meter freestyle in an Olympic record time of 1.11.0, and swam the third leg of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay that set a world record of 4:47.
Read more >

Les Pawson, 1905-1992, of Pawtucket was a world-class marathon runner of the 1930's and 1940's, and the chief local rival to the famed "Tarzan" Brown. Pawson had three victories in the Boston Marathon, including a record-breaking win in 1933, his first Boston triumph. He was named to the U.S.
Read more >

Frederick D. "Fritz" Pollard Jr. won a bronze medal in the 110-meter high hurdles in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.&nbsp; Pollard equaled the world record for the 45-yard high hurdles while running for Brown University in the spring of 1934.
Read more >

George Pulliam, 1923-1956, is regarded by some as Rhode Island's greatest all-around schoolboy athlete. At Cranston High, he won All-State honors twice in football and hockey and once in baseball, where he played at every position but catcher. For his extraordinary efforts he was nicknamed "The Cranston Crusher." He was the fullback and star of the 1940 Cranston eleven that was undefeated, untied, and unscored upon, and was chosen the 1941 Journal Honor Role Boy.
Read more >

James F. Quinn, 1907-2004, was a gold medalist in the 400-meter relay in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics with a world record equaling time of 41.0. Later he broke the world record in the 60-yard dash.
Read more >

Dudley Shaw Richards, 1932-1961, a nationally prominent figure-skater who competed in pairs with Maribel Y. Owen at the 1960 Winter Games at Squaw Valley, California, and finished tenth. They won the U.S.
Read more >

Aileen Riggin (Soule), 1906-2002, won the gold medal in the three-meter springboard diving competition in the 1924 Antwerp Games and finished fifth in the platform dive. The 14-year-old Riggin of Newport was 4'7" tall and weighed only 65 pounds in 1920. At the Paris Olympics in 1924, Riggin won a silver medal in springboard diving and a bronze medal in the 100-meter backstroke.

In her post Olympic career Riggin appeared in a Holywood movie and starred in Billy Rose's first Aquacade.
Read more >

John Spellman, 1899-1966, won a gold medal in freestyle wrestling in the light heavyweight division (192 pounds) at the 1924 Paris Games. Spellman was a Brown University student-athlete and captain of the 1924 Brown Wrestling Team. John's older brother Bob, and his younger brother, Frank, were also Brown captains and competed on New England championship teams coached by Brown's legendary wresting mentor Frank Herrick.
Read more >

R. Scott Steele: silver medal in yachting--board sailing--in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Scott was born in Newport in 1958 to a Navy family and now resides in Maryland. Steele, who left Rhode Island at the age of three, began his sailboarding career at St.
Read more >

Norman Stephen Taber, 1891-1952, a native of Providence and a student at Brown, won a gold medal in the now discontinued 3,000 meter team relay race in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. He was also the bronze medalist in the 1,500-meter run (the metric mile). Taber's time of 3:56:9 was only one-tenth of a second behind the winner Arnold Jackson of Great Britain who set the Olympic record in that race. Taber held Brown University records in the 880, the mile, and the two mile runs for many years.
Read more >

Fred Tootell, 1902-1964, became an Olympic champion in the hammer-throw at the 1924 Paris Games with a toss of 174'10". Tootell, the first American-born winner of the hammer event, became a legendary track and field coach at University of Rhode Island, where his Ram teams compiled a phenomenal winning percentage in dual meets. He remains the only Rhode Islander ever to win an individual Olympic gold medal in a track and field event.
Read more >

John Treacy: silver medal in the marathon in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
A native of Ireland, Treacy came to Providence College as one of the first of a long line of Irish distance runners enticed to PC by track coach Bob Amato and soccer coach Bill Doyle, who was himself Irish born.

Treacy (whose brother Ray is the highly-successful track coach at PC) was a multiple collegiate All-American in the distance events. He was an All-American in cross-country in 1976, 1977, and 1978; and All-American in indoor and outdoor track in 1978, the NCAA three-mile champion in 1978, and the all-time Friar record holder at 3,000 meters, 10,000 meters, and two miles.
Read more >

Ralph A. Warburton was was an All-State hockey selection at LaSalle Academy in 1941, and went on to star at Dartmouth College where he captained the Big Green's national championship team of 1947. Warburton was a member of the American Hockey Association team chosen to play in the 1948 Winter Olympics. George Pulliam was a member of the rival AAU contingent.
Read more >